


Soldiers

by red_as_ever



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: eventual Lolix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-02
Updated: 2014-12-02
Packaged: 2018-02-27 19:52:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2704508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_as_ever/pseuds/red_as_ever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Locus moves to Adaptive to begin life as a mercenary. It isn’t what he expected. Eventual Lolix. Guns for Hire AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soldiers

Planet A-D4P7-IV. The locals call it “Adaptive.” The soldiers back home call it a gold mine for someone of Locus’s skill. When the war ended, he took his team at their word and flew out here to make a living as a mercenary.

Now that he’s here, he’s not sure he’d call it a living. The mercenaries he met in Faysea were an embarrassment to the career, bullying their way to money instead of working decent jobs. Pathetic. Here in C0–R6S, he has met few exceptions.

None of said exceptions are on this mission with him. Locus hired on last week on a protection detail. Mercenaries from Gulch have been bothering a local merchant. The man offered good money; Locus wishes he had taken that as a warning.

He might as well be on this mission alone, despite the five men waiting in here with him. The bored one near the door continues to sharpen his knife past a perfectly-keen edge. Doesn’t he know he’s weakening the blade? The man to his left probably hasn’t seen his toes in years, judging by that beer belly. The other three sit on the floor for a game of dice.

“Shouldn’t you be paying attention?” Locus asks.

“Oh, relax,” says the man who brought the dice in the first place. “It’s one merc. We’ll hear them coming.”

Locus thinks it would be appropriately dramatic for their target to kick the door down now. Of course that doesn’t happen. He won’t escape this crowd so easily. He moves to the window; someone should watch for their target to come.

Too late. The door swings open. Something skitters across the floor: a flash grenade. He has just enough time to shield his eyes. Footsteps hammer across the floor, accompanying shouts of protest.

The light dies in time for Locus to see a woman in black slaughter his fellow mercenaries. That ill-sharpened knife is rammed into its owner’s chest. Beer-belly’s neck breaks easily despite its thickness. A quick succession of kicks brings the gamblers to their knees, if they aren’t already. She shoots them in the head.

Locus grabs his gun. Shoots. She’s gone, ducking left, racing toward him. He keeps her in his sights but she’s so fast. His throat tightens in panic.

Then she’s on him, the rifle knocked from his hands. It’s not panic tightening his throat, it’s the force of her punch. He drops.

She kicks him in the head. Even with the helmet protecting him, he’s plunged into darkness.

When he comes to, sirens are screaming outside, but he can barely hear them above the pounding in his throat, the ache in his head. He groans; the pain only intensifies. In his flickering vision, he glimpses his employer. Locus doesn’t need to see his face to know that the woman got what she came for.

He isn’t getting the second half of his payment. His client is shouting and he understands that much. More than that, he knows deep down that he has failed as a mercenary.

Why did the woman leave him alive? He deserved to die like the other men.

No, he realizes. It’s not that she didn’t want to kill him. It’s that she didn’t care. For these mercenaries, the job isn’t about the killing. It’s about the objective.

All his life, he’s been a solider. But he didn’t understand what that meant until he saw her.


End file.
